


your lips come as some surprise, that they would want to come and meet mine

by CaffeineChic



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale is Bad at Feelings (Good Omens), Aziraphale is a Mess (Good Omens), Crowley is Bad at Feelings (Good Omens), Crowley is a Mess (Good Omens), Idiots in Love, M/M, Post-Canon, just so very very terrible, they're both terrible at feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:15:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24114142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaffeineChic/pseuds/CaffeineChic
Summary: The phone number was printed clearly on the napkin. Along with a name. Their waiter's name as it happened -- and placed with the bill directly in front of CrowleyThis was certainly not the first number Crowley had received -- it wasn't even the first number he'd received from a waiter in this particular restaurant. It was the first he'd received since the world hadn't ended.Crowley picked up the napkin, held it between two fingers -- and glared until it burst into a short but effective bout of flame.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 54
Kudos: 311





	your lips come as some surprise, that they would want to come and meet mine

The phone number was printed clearly on the napkin. Along with a name. Their waiter's name as it happened -- and placed with the bill directly in front of Crowley (his disdain was immediate -- Aziraphale hadn't even finished dessert)

This was certainly not the first number Crowley had received -- it wasn't even the first number he'd received from a waiter in this particular restaurant. It _was_ the first he'd received since the world hadn't ended.

Crowley picked up the napkin, held it between two fingers -- and glared until it burst into a short but effective bout of flame.

"Crowley!"

"Bloody rude is what it is."

"My dear, he is hardly the first person that has left their number for you. Half the waiters who work here in fact have done so, and don't pretend otherwise."

"Never used them." Crowley was quiet, but clear -- eyes anywhere and everywhere but Aziraphale. "And that was… before."

Before before before the world hadn't ended, before things that hadn't been said -- well -- they still hadn't been said, but they felt less unsaid than they used to be. They were sitting half an arm's length apart rather than the previous three feet. They were clearly together. Well not _together_ , but not not together?

He didn't know. He couldn't ask.

Fear could do extraordinary things when you weren't looking.

(it could wrap your tongue in knots and crush your windpipe. choke you in your seat with everything you've wanted sitting within reach. unreachable.)

Aziraphale stretched out and traced a finger over the ashed remains on Crowley's hand, miracling the napkin back into existence.

His gaze, which had been resolutely studying the leftmost corner of the ceiling, locked on the angel. "I don't want his number."

"I know." Aziraphale slid the newly reformed napkin back to the table before returning his hand to Crowley's. "He'll think you took it with you if you don't leave it behind." A pause, a breath, a flicker of something that Crowley couldn't grasp the edges of. "No need to get his hopes up."

(it sounded like a question. he didn't have the words to answer it. he wasn't good at this. he wasn't _good_.)

Aziraphale’s thumb stroked the back of Crowley's hand, grazing the knuckles, caressing the space between Crowley's pointer and middle finger, digging in gently - pushing pushing pushing. Crowley made an undignified noise as the air to his lungs cut off, and tried to remember that he didn't need to breathe -- passing out from lack of oxygen would be both unnecessary and unbecoming.

"Angel..."

"You're right, of course. Quite rude of him to leave his number, all things considered. Though I can hardly fault his taste."

Crowley's limbs jolted -- his knees jarred the table, upending his coffee cup.

"You can't just say things like that!" A hiss, a splutter, a manic attempt at composure. He righted his cup with bloodless fingers -- bone white and numb and fucking useless. Dregs of coffee stained the table cloth. He was good at that -- staining things.

Aziraphale appeared to Crowley to be unperturbed by his histrionics.

"I will, in fact, say things like that and a great deal many other things, if you'd care to hear them."

"If I'd -- if I'd -- care to hear them!" Crowley was incensed by the suggestion that it was he who had suddenly switched gears without warning -- the absolute brazenness of Aziraphale to imply that it was Crowley that needed to catch up. But then -- he did. He did, he did, he did.

"Would you?"

"What?"

"Care to hear them, darling."

(the _darling_ shook and wobbled -- ever so slightly -- not quite upright. Crowley barely noticed, too unbalanced himself.)

"I -- " The absolute effrontery of this Angel. He was undone, completely. " -- would."

(I would I would I would - give me all the words, bury me in vowels and consonants, wrap my limbs in your fancy epistles and tie me up with missives. Write your life all over me. Whisper our future into my skin.)

“Good.”

The absolute brazenness of this Angel to imply that it was _Crowley_ that needed to catch up when he had been waiting and waiting and waiting.

(and holding so still, afraid to even let a feather twitch out of place lest it startle Aziraphale off.

He'd held his wings so still, so tight -- the urge to flee always rattling in the vanes.)

He was vibrating now at the idea that he'd fuck this up without ever getting started. Anxiety reverberated down his spine. His legs shook.

Maybe Aziraphale had passed him, broken free of his own worries and Crowley had missed the change of pace, the gradual pull ahead -- it seemed impossible. He missed nothing about Aziraphale. There wasn't a hair on this head that escaped his attention, not a twitch of fingers that he couldn't see from a mile off. He'd been circling for 6000 years.

What had he missed?

What had he missed?

Crowley dug his nails into his palm -- he just needed to pull himself together, to retract the parts of him that had scattered across the restaurant floor in response to apparently being romanced by the fussiest angel in God's long history of creation.

"What -- what now?" Had his tongue always been so heavy? Had words always been so big? Aziraphale seemed so _sure_. 

What had he missed?

What had he missed?

(nothing -- everything -- a reshaping of Aziraphale's own anxiety into paper-thin armor, a gossamer layer of forced bravado. he caught sight of the edge of it, dismissed it as a trick of the light.)

The panic set in, sharp and painful. His limbs started to twitch and twist (how do you coil and uncoil when your corporation is all angles and sharp corners?).

It was different when it was theoretical, when it was a thing they weren't talking about, weren't staring at directly. But now, Aziraphale was staring directly at him.

No more theory.

Reality.

He twitched again.

"Stop that, now." Aziraphale said, softly, not unkindly. 

"What?"

But he knew, he knew he knew, as Aziraphale did, that he was spiraling swiftly.

A whisper, soft -- Crowley had to strain to hear it. "I thought you knew."

"I do. Of course I know -- know, what exactly?"

"That I love you." 

Oh. _That_.

He twitched again. Angel's love everything though, unlimited and unending and unencumbered by choice. Of course Aziraphale loved him. He was built for it, he'd been bestowed to the world to keep it safe and love and love and love all those who walked its earth -- humans, ethereals, serpents that slither in their wake.

Although. Crowley knew. He _knew_ . It wasn't that simple. Not _really_. Aziraphale didn't love all things equally. He had preferences, predilections. He'd been wearing the same coat for 180 years. He kept hold of the things he loved.

(6000 years, his brain whispered, that's how long he's been holding on to you)

"In love." Aziraphale's voice startled him out of his thoughts.

"What?"

"I'm clarifying. I am _in_ love with you. At least, I hope it is _with_ you." 

Crowley gaped, time ceased to mean anything -- he was stuck in this moment as he watched it replay again and again -- Aziraphale declaring love -- gifting it away. 

Time slowed and slowed and slowed until it stretched taut and perilous. A dangerously quiet and tremulous thing. The space between the atoms filled with all the things that Crowley wasn't saying, as soundless words were choking at the back of his tongue. 

Aziraphale put down his fork in the face of Crowley's silence, the fretting was almost immediate. "Oh, I do hope I haven't gotten it wrong." He quieted and stilled. "No matter." And softer and softer and softer still, unable to meet Crowley's eyes. "No matter." 

Crowley watched the angel's heart break open and spill across the table. He watched Aziraphale's bravery crumbling in the face of doubt. Innuendo all well and good when the courage was being met with reciprocity, washing away with every second that Crowley sat silent.

(they were terrible at this. an angel of words and books with every answer at his fingertips and a demon who couldn't stop questions tripping from his mouth. why were they so terrible at this.)

Crowley had carried the words inside himself for as long as he could remember. They had rattled around his head, echoing off his skull. 

He had never said them aloud. He should have practiced, should have held them in his mouth and known their weight, let his tongue trace their shape and voice them into being. He only knew what he'd imagined. 

The words failed him -- or he failed them. 

But he wouldn't be defeated. 

Time slammed forward again, propelling him out of his chair -- a strike of whipcord motion and Aziraphale was hauled up but not out of his chair. Crowley twisted the lapel of the angel's jacket between his fingers and curled himself down. 

The words sat and sat and sat in his mouth so goddamn heavy. His teeth ground down, biting at his cheek, tearing at the things he couldn't manage to say. So he gave them as best he could, pressing his lips to Aziraphale's -- a flick, a lick, a seam undone and Crowley rolled the syllables from his tongue onto the angel's, pressed them over and in. 

(hear me hear me hear me in this silence. the words are yours let me give them to you this way. let me give you everything.) 

Aziraphale answered him back -- sliding his tongue against Crowley’s -- gliding it along his teeth, the roof of his mouth, tugging his lip gently into his mouth.

A hand ghosted his hip -- fingertips spelling out everything they weren’t saying.

Crowley heard every syllable.

He drew back -- pressed his forehead to Aziraphale’s.

"Of course it's _with_ me." 

The words skittered out of him. 

He never imagined that they would shake -- he thought they'd be firm, sturdy, a solid foundation for his truth. 

Fear does such extraordinary things.

The adrenaline died in his veins as he fell back to his seat, trailing his fingers down Aziraphale's arm. The angel smiled.

Crowley's jaw unhinged with a question he knew he needed answered. He was defenseless to hold it back. "Are you sure?"

(because if you say yes i will wrap my vines around you and never let go, i will root myself into your life for every day in front of us. be sure be sure be sure)

“Yes.” What more needed to be said.

(for now.

for later there would be two beings of unhuman natures stumbling over sounds and nerves and six thousand years of hurt and uncertainty.

for later later later still there would be -- peace. at last.)

Their waiter returned and Crowley stood -- miracled cash fell from his hands to cover the bill -- the phone number partially visible beneath.

He reached out for Aziraphale -- who met him halfway, tucking himself into Crowley’s side. He caught the waiter’s eye. “We’re settled, thanks.” He walked them out.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> if you made it this far, hi. this has been in my WIP for 6 months and just burning my brain with effort to finish
> 
> so now its done
> 
> title robbed from "Some Surprise"
> 
> thanks as always to alias424 who saves my writing from me
> 
> i'm here on tumblr

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Bookshop](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28693437) by [HopeCoppice](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopeCoppice/pseuds/HopeCoppice)




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